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- H. A. McAPEB; V Apparatus for Blanking Borders offlards.

-No'. 236,902. Patented. Jan. 25,1881.

UNITED STATES PATENT ()EFIOE.

HUGH A. MOAFEE, OE BROOKLYN, ASSIGNOR TO TIFFANY & 00., OF NEW YORK, N.Y.

.APPARATUS FOR BLACKING BORDERS OF CARDS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 236,902, dated January25, 1881.

Application filed October 6, 1879.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, HUGH A. MGAFEE, ofBrooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented anew and useful Improvement in Apparatus for Blacking the Borders ofMourning Cards and Envelopes, &c., of which the following is aspecification.

This invention consists in improvements in the apparatus used forblacking the borders of mourning cards, envelopes, &c.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a plan View of my apparatus, and Fig. 2 isa side view of the same.

a is a piece of long smooth board, at the upper side of which is placeda bar of wood, I). In this bar is placed, parallel with its side edges,a series of holes quite close together. There is used on the board, inconnection with this bar 1), another bar, 0, containing an equal numberof holes at the same distance apart. In all of these holes are insertedwire pins d d, &c., such pins being. made long enough to project upabout an inch or so from the surface of the bars. These pins should notbe contained within these holes so firmly that they cannot be withdrawnby the fingers when desired. Now, between these two bars containing pinsare placed the cards, when the two bars are brought together parallel,and with the two series of pins so situated opposite each other that twodiagonally-opposite edges of each respective card inserted between twopins of each series, respectively, will preserve an angle of forty-fivedegrees with the sides of the strips. A card being so adjusted betweenthe pins, as seen at w in the drawings, Fig. 1, the remaining cards canbe rapidly inserted to the full capacity of the apparatus, and theblacking applied over the exposed surface of such cards so arranged bymeans of a brush. This will not only give the same width of black borderto all the cards, but will preserve such width uniform along the wholeborder of each card. When this relation of the strips to each other isdetermined a block, 6, may be laid in between the two strips, in orderto serve as a foundation to the cards while undergoing the blacking.

In order to better determine and preserve the parallelism of the bar 0,also to shift the bar 0 laterally without disturbing its parallelism tothe bar I), I place another bar, f, below bar 0, and connect the two bya pair of short arms, 9 g. These arms are of the same length, and arepivoted to the bars 0 and f at points it h h h, so as to be alwaysparallel in their movements. At the point it the pivot-rod is extendedup and a thread out on it, and a little lock-nut placed thereon, so asto look the arms, and consequently the bar 0, at any given point.

The barf contains two slots, t i, and guidepins j j are inserted in theboard a, passing through these slots, respectively, so that the bar fmay be preserved parallel with the edge of the board, and consequentlywith the bar I). One of these guide-piusj has a screw cut on it and alock-nut, it, placed thereon to fasten down the bar f whenever required.

After the cards have been blacked on one side, as above stated, the bar0 is withdrawn a short distance from the bar I), so as to permit of thereversal of the cards in a body, in order to expose their reversesurfaces to the blacking operation. The cards are then run through theapparatus in a reverse direction, in Order to complete the blacking ofthe remaining half of their borders.

In case very narrow borders are required, bars with pins very closetogether should be used. Where wider borders are required, instead ofusing bars with pins wide apart, every other pin may be withdrawn. This,in most instances, answers every purpose.

I claim- The combination of two parallel bars, each bar containing aseries of pins, with a third parallel bar, the latter connected with themoving bar of said two parallel bars by means of arms, and containingslots and guide-pins, substantially as and for the purpose described.

HUGH A. MCAFEE.

Witnesses:

JAMES H. HUNTER, K. NEWELL.

